Gov’t Targets Private Bank Accounts, Seizes Funds Without Charge or Trial
Dees Illustration (http://dees2.com)
by Mac Slavo
Activist Post
September 27, 2013
Do you still keep a hefty portion of your savings in a U.S. bank?
If so you may want to reconsider your options. Because if the following report from the Institute of Justice is any indication, nothing you hold in private bank account is safe anymore.
Can the government use civil forfeiture to take your money when you have done nothing wrong—and then pocket the proceeds?
The IRS thinks so.
For over 30 years, Terry Dehko has successfully run a grocery store in Fraser, Mich., with his daughter Sandy. In January 2013, without warning,the federal government used civil forfeiture to seize all of the money from the Dehkos’ store bank account (more than $35,000) even though they’ve done absolutely nothing wrong.
Their American Dream is now a nightmare.
Federal civil forfeiture law features an appalling lack of due process: It empowers the government to seize private property from Americans without ever charging, let alone convicting, them of a crime. Perversely, the government then pockets the proceeds while providing no prompt way to get a court to review the seizure.
On September 25, 2013, Terry and Sandy teamed up with the Institute for Justice to fight back in federal court. A victory will vindicate not just their right to be free from abusive forfeiture tactics, but the right of every American not to have their property wrongfully seized by government.
Every year the government of the United States seizes tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer money and redistributes these funds to “black” projects which are often unaccounted for. On September 10th, 2001, for example, Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted that the D.O.D. had lost around $2.3 Trillion. The funds were unaccounted for and any investigation into where they went ended the following day when the office holding the records in question was reportedly destroyed in the Pentagon attack.
No one was held to account. No one went to jail. No one was punished.
Make a suspicious transaction or can’t account for your money as a private citizen, however, and they will seize everything you own and treat you like a financial terrorist.
There are no warrants, no charges, no court proceedings. They just take it. And if you don’t comply, they’ll send an IRS SWAT team through your front door and imprison you.
What’s frightening about the experience of Terry and Sandy Dehko is that just months prior to their seizure of their assets the Internal Revenue Service completed an audit indicating that all of their records were legitimate, and their small business was operating within the guidelines of Federal tax law.
No matter.
ACTION ALERT — Albany, NY Introduces Strongest Resolution In America Against NDAA — video included
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Albany, NY – September 23rd, 2013
Contact
Raphaelle O’Neil
Press@pandaunite.org
The Heart Of Tyranny: Albany, NY Introduces Resolution Against NDAA
In an effort to restore the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights, 11th Ward Councilman Anton Konev of the Albany, NY Common Council, has introduced Resolution 80.92.13, the strongest resolution in the nation, designed to protect Albany’s citizens from any application of sections 1021 and 1022 of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), or the Law of War in the City of Albany.
The 2012 National Defense Authorization Act was overwhelmingly passed by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama on December 31, 2011. The 2012 NDAA declares the United States to be a battlefield in the war on terror and Sections 1021 & 1022 authorize the indefinite detention, without charge or trial, of all persons on US soil accused by the President of undefined “support” for terrorist activity or commission of a ‘belligerent act”. This violates multiple provisions of the US Constitution, including the 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 14th amendments.
People Against the NDAA (PANDA), a national, nonpartisan, grass roots organization founded in January 2012, is committed to reversing the NDAA’s unconstitutional authorizations with activism to affect policy at the level of state and local government. PANDA started in Bowling Green, OH and has since expanded into over 30 state teams nationwide.
If the resolution is adopted by Albany’s City Common Council, law enforcement in Albany will be required to interpose between the U.S. military, or other similar agencies, and Albany residents under the NDAA’s special provisions, or under any interpretation of Presidential authority permitting detention of U.S. residents without trial under the Law of War. New York’s state and federal legislators, its governor, and its Attorney General will be notified of the City’s determination that local and federal officers will obey the letter of the Constitution and allow due process including a trial to all Albany residents.
PANDA’s New York State Team lobbied hard for this resolution and supplied the initial language from which the resolution was adapted. Kelly Citrin, director emeritus of PANDA NY, said:
“The National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 is the most dangerous law passed by the United States Government in recent memory, and this resolution is the beginning of a restoration of American civil liberties in Albany, New York, and throughout the Country. The fight goes on, unrelenting, and this resolution will be a rallying point for the energies of our fellow Americans to restore what was always theirs.” Project SALAM’s Lynne Jackson and Albany mayoral candidate Jesse Calhoun also did invaluable work to advance this resolution.
Passage of this resolution will go a long way to restoring the protections of the rights of the people of Albany, NY and, through the example it will create, the citizens and non-citizen residents of every municipality in the United States of America. Albany activists hope to restore the fundamental right to a fair trial to all persons in the United States, and hope a fair trial of the NDAA will result in its permanent removal from everyday life among the residents of Albany, NY.
This resolution has 7 sponsors. We only need one more. Now is the time to take action and restore liberty in the very heart of tyranny. Although the resolution has been introduced, it must be pushed through, protected from amendments, and voted on by the Council. In order to take a real stand, in order to build the barriers, and in order to restore liberty in one crucial city, we must act NOW.
Tell the Common Council to pass the strongest resolution in the nation. Act NOW to stop the NDAA in Albany, NY.
Take Action NOW: http://www.takebackalbany.com
VIDEO — US seizes Iranian-controlled NY skyscraper despite promises of dialogue
RT
September 19, 2013
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani pledged a completely peaceful nuclear future for his country. The statement has been generally welcomed by the international community, and is seen as a step by Tehran towards a more moderate stance on the global political arena. But as RT’s Marina Portnaya reports, some of Washington’s actions could jeopardize the prospect of open dialogue.
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VIDEO — Mysterious Pollutant Coating Cars
Tat’s Revolution
September 19, 2013
Some Chattanooga residents who live along Appling Street are speaking up about something strange in the air. They said the gritty substance keeps covering their cars, and they fear it could be harmful.
White blotches cover cars, and at first glance, it sort of looks like pollen. But residents who took a closer look said they aren’t so sure.
Modern art was CIA ‘weapon’
wikimedia image: http://tinyurl.com/l5egt3x
by Frances Stonor Saunders
The Independent
October 22, 1995
[Potent News editor’s note: While I think there is probably more to this story than meets the eye and I think that the CIA wasn’t doing this in the interest of defending America, I still found this to be an interesting article.]
For decades in art circles it was either a rumour or a joke, but now it is confirmed as a fact. The Central Intelligence Agency used American modern art – including the works of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko – as a weapon in the Cold War. In the manner of a Renaissance prince – except that it acted secretly – the CIA fostered and promoted American Abstract Expressionist painting around the world for more than 20 years.
The connection is improbable. This was a period, in the 1950s and 1960s, when the great majority of Americans disliked or even despised modern art – President Truman summed up the popular view when he said: “If that’s art, then I’m a Hottentot.” As for the artists themselves, many were ex- communists barely acceptable in the America of the McCarthyite era, and certainly not the sort of people normally likely to receive US government backing.
Why did the CIA support them? Because in the propaganda war with the Soviet Union, this new artistic movement could be held up as proof of the creativity, the intellectual freedom, and the cultural power of the US. Russian art, strapped into the communist ideological straitjacket, could not compete.
The existence of this policy, rumoured and disputed for many years, has now been confirmed for the first time by former CIA officials. Unknown to the artists, the new American art was secretly promoted under a policy known as the “long leash” – arrangements similar in some ways to the indirect CIA backing of the journal Encounter, edited by Stephen Spender.
The decision to include culture and art in the US Cold War arsenal was taken as soon as the CIA was founded in 1947. Dismayed at the appeal communism still had for many intellectuals and artists in the West, the new agency set up a division, the Propaganda Assets Inventory, which at its peak could influence more than 800 newspapers, magazines and public information organisations. They joked that it was like a Wurlitzer jukebox: when the CIA pushed a button it could hear whatever tune it wanted playing across the world.
The next key step came in 1950, when the International Organisations Division (IOD) was set up under Tom Braden. It was this office which subsidised the animated version of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, which sponsored American jazz artists, opera recitals, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s international touring programme. Its agents were placed in the film industry, in publishing houses, even as travel writers for the celebrated Fodor guides. And, we now know, it promoted America’s anarchic avant-garde movement, Abstract Expressionism.
Initially, more open attempts were made to support the new American art. In 1947 the State Department organised and paid for a touring international exhibition entitled “Advancing American Art”, with the aim of rebutting Soviet suggestions that America was a cultural desert. But the show caused outrage at home, prompting Truman to make his Hottentot remark and one bitter congressman to declare: “I am just a dumb American who pays taxes for this kind of trash.” The tour had to be cancelled.
VIDEO — Rebels v. Radicals: Infighting erupts as US intervention in Syria halts
RT
September 19, 2013
The civil war that’s devastated Syria for more than two years has seemingly changed beyond recognition from the initial conflict. Rebel forces and al-Qaeda-linked factions that once fought side by side in the anti-Assad push are now pitted against each other in violent battles. And reports suggest that increasingly, the more radical elements appear to be gaining ground. RT is joined by James Corbett editor of The Corbett Report.
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Manuel re-intensified to hurricane strength, expected to make landfall again
by Adonai
The Watchers
September 19, 2013
Two tropical storms, Ingrid and Manuel, brought heavy rainfall and caused destruction and chaos throughout Mexico over the last couple of days. Current estimates are that 80 people have been killed. The forecasters are warning of more storms ahead as Manuel re-intensified to hurricane strength in the last few hours and is expected to make landfall again. Tens of thousands of people have been trapped in massive landslides.
Manuel first hit Mexico as tropical storm on Sunday, September 15, and intensified to hurricane strength on Wednesday, calmed down and re-intensified on Thursday.
On Monday, September 16, a major landslide hit small village of La Pintada in the country’s southern mountains. Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto said that at least 58 people are missing in the village, which has a population of about 400 people. He described the damage there as “catastrophic.” It’s unclear how many people remain buried, he said.
More than half of La Pintada was demolished, few homes were left,” Maria del Carmen Catalan, a 27-year-old mother of three, said at a convention center that serves as a refuge for storm victims (GP).
Looting has broken out in the flooded Mexican beach resort of Acapulco as the government struggled to reach people cut off by flooding.
More than one million people have been affected and Acapulco’s airport terminal was under water, stranding tourists.
Dozens of homes in Tampico, one of the main Gulf ports north of Veracruz, were waterlogged when the Panuco River burst its banks, forcing evacuations.
PN 